The need for effective and economical antimicrobial compositions is well known. There are a wide variety of applications in industry, in the home, and in hospitals, where inhibiting the growth of microorganisms is necessary.
A class of compounds which have met with particular success because of their antimicrobial activity are the halopropargyl carbamates, particularly 3-iodo-2-propargyl butyl carbamate, IPBC. Processes for the preparation of such class of compounds and their use are disclosed in European Patent Application 0014032, published on Aug. 6, 1980, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,661,632, 4,639,541, 4,647,572 and 4,719,227. Unfortunately, such compounds often lack the necessary activity, light stability and/or solubility characteristics to facilitate formulation in both lipophilic and hydrophilic systems. This naturally imposes a severe limitation on the usefulness of these products.